The Thunder Bay Regional Health Sciences Centre is changing the way they deliver health care.
As a result of the four-year strategic plan, the hospital will be operating on a program management model, which president and CEO Andree Robichaud said is more patient-centric.
The hospital will have teams in place in the areas of cardiovascular care, chronic disease management, mental health and addictions, trauma, women and children and cancer, which has already been run on a program management basis.
The new model will benefit patients by offering them more familiarity with the medical professionals they encounter at the Health Sciences Centre.
“As they come in, if they have a chronic disease, they will become familiar with the team because the team is allocated to the program. It won’t be changing all the time,” Robichaud said. “They will see the same people a lot; they will get to know their care team a lot closer as the patients now see in cancer.”
Almost all academic health sciences centres are managed on a program management model, Robichaud added.
Also in the strategic plan is a focus on Aboriginal health. Robichaud said they need to improve the way they support the Aboriginal community.
“We need to be more culturally sensitive,” she said, adding they need to ensure everything they do has an Aboriginal component.
